"Downright Dumb" Internet Stunt Leaves 1 Dead.

posted by Ritch Cassidy -

Feb 1, 2018

'Downright dumb' Internet stunt ends with Memphis teen shot in head

An Internet stunt that police describe as “downright dumb” led to a 17-year-old Memphis, Tenn., boy being shot in the head by a friend as they played a game called the "No Lackin Challenge," officials said.

The youth remains hospitalized in critical condition after the Thursday incident.

Police told the Memphis Patch website that the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Sherman Lackland, didn't have a permit to carry the gun and faces charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon and unlawful possession of a handgun. He was jailed on $25,000 bond and a hearing is scheduled for Friday.

The "No Lackin" game has emerged on the Internet in recent years, with "Lackin" being a slang word which means not having a firearm on you, according to the Urban Dictionary. "No Lackin" means you are ready for any situation or confrontation, according to the website.

Videos on YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet show people pulling guns on their friends and their friends pulling guns on them, but no shots are fired.

That wasn't the case during the early-morning incident inside E's 24 Hour Café, an eatery east of downtown Memphis.

Police said Lackland was sitting in a booth at the restaurant with the victim and another friend playing the "No Lackin Challenge." Lackland told police he accidentally shot the teen in the right side of his head with a .40-caliber gun, according to an arrest affidavit.

A witness to the shooting, Terrencio Bell, who said he is a cousin of the victim, told local TV station WMC that his relative is in and out of consciousness. "Like right now his brain has swelled up, and it's bleeding," he added.

Bell told the station that Lackland is known to play with his gun all the time and disputed the the “No Lackin” game was involved.

"No, it wasn't the No Lackin Challenge,” he said. “We were just sitting there eating when Sherman took [the gun] back out of his pocket, he pointed it up, and it went off."

However, Louis Brownlee of the Memphis Police Department, confirmed to Patch that Lackland had said the pair were playing the game at the time of the incident.

"What's crazy is that I saw it on YouTube last fall," Brownlee said. "Someone shared it with our department. And we just shook our heads, like man, that's just downright dumb. Luckily, there had not been any incidents involving it here locally, until this one."

"It's just guys being foolish," he added. "Our police director is known for saying, hey, let's not get ourselves hurt or killed trying to get Internet-famous doing something for likes on Facebook or things like that."

Yolanda Jones of the The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, a USA TODAY Network property, contributed to this report.